Forum on "Dissidents and the Struggle for Freedom"

President Havel and distinguished guests, I am honored to be here this evening. Carl Gershman and the NED team-thank you for your efforts in organizing this important event; I'd like to express my appreciation for Dr. James Billington and Carolyn Brown of the Library of Congress for hosting us; and thanks go to Ambassador Petr Kolar and the Czech Embassy for their support.

Tonight, we have assembled men and women of courage, champions of freedom who have devoted themselves to advancing democracy in their respective countries, and who have risked their lives in doing so. Each of you is an inspiration not only to those in your respective countries but to all who seek freedom and respect for human rights worldwide.

Each of you has made immense personal sacrifices to stand up for liberty in Russia, Burma, Cuba, Belarus, China, North Korea, and Iran. You are agents of positive change, in the most difficult and dangerous circumstances. You are making a difference: your voices are being heard and acted upon.

You deserve the gratitude and support not just of your fellow citizens, but of men and women in all countries.

This evening, I listened closely to your remarks and each of you had a common message: that all men and women have the right to fundamental freedoms. And you have all stated quite eloquently how to advance those freedoms.

President Vaclav Havel, who is here with us tonight, embodies the dissident who seeks truth and justice. Through his determination, his eloquence, and his actions, he helped transform his country and the world. I have been honored to work with him and his fellow countrymen-most recently on Burma-and congratulate him on the awards he is receiving tonight.

By defending freedom and human dignity in the face of oppression, President Havel advanced the most noble, hopeful, and powerful cause of all, and each of you is doing the same today. As President Havel wrote in his landmark essay The Power of the Powerless, "life, in its essence, moves towards plurality, diversity, independent self-constitution and self-organization, in short, towards the fulfillment of its own freedom . . . ."

The work you are doing now can and will have a lasting impact. I quote Nathaniel Niles, an American patriot who urged us, two years before America declared its independence and nine years before it secured its freedom, never to forget the power of every person. He said, "each individual has a proportion of influence on some neighbour at least; he, on another, and so on, as in a river . . . . [M]ighty floods have their rise in single drops from the rocks, which . . . . unite, proceed, enlarge, till mountains tremble at their sound."

You are making a critical difference now. And in time, the efforts you have begun will cause the mountains to tremble.